488 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



Very possibly a species answering to Horsfield's description 

 and plate of arcuata will be found to occur in Java";* but, if so, 

 this certainly is not our Indian bird : on the other hand, if no 

 second species exists in Java, and Horsfield's javanica is identical 

 with his arcuata, Cuv., and also with our Indian awsuree, then 

 the name arcuata must drop ; firstly, because the description 

 under which it was first published is utterly wrong ; and, 

 secondly, because the name javanica has priority, which even its 

 originator could not set aside. 



This arcuata is not major, because the latter has a rufescent 

 nut brown head, and no chestnut on the wings. It is just 

 possible that Horsfield's javanica may have been a young bird 

 of the same species as his arcuata, Cuv., and different from our 

 Indian species. In this case the latter will take Sykes' name 

 of awsuree, but arcuata can, under no circumstances, be applied 

 to it, as no matter what the bird to which Cuvier applied the 

 name, in Mus., the first publication of that name fixes thence- 

 forth its application. 



953. — Dendrocygna fulva, Gm. D. major, Jerd. 



I believe I must include this species, as Eamsay's re- 

 mark, {Ibis, 1877, 472) that it is rare on the Tonghoo side of 

 the Pegu Yonia, leads me to infer that he has obtained or ob- 



* Since this was in type, I have noticed the following remarks of Blyth, Ibis, 1868, 

 p. 38, which completely set the question at rest, though Blyth himself seems to have 

 overlooked their bearing, when in the Ibis for 1867, he applied Cuvier's name to our 

 Indian bird. Perhaps he failed to realise that Cuvier's own name was unpublished, and 

 that its application was fixed by the species in connection with which it was first pub- 

 lished. Blyth says : — 



" Dendrocygna vagans, Eyton (Eraser's ' Zoologia Typica') ; D, gouldi, Bonap ; 

 Anas javanica, var., Horsfield (Linn. Trans, vol. XIII. \ p. 200); A. arcuata apud 

 Horsfield, figured in ' Zool. Bes. in Java,' and Gould, B. Austr. Hab. Java, Philippines, 

 and North Australia. In the India Museum are two species of this genus collected in 

 Java by Dr. Horsfield, and which were discriminated by him as two varieties of his 

 A. javanica, subsequently identified by him with A. arcuata, Cuv. The other variety 

 is D. arcuata (vera), v. Mareca a wsuree, Sykes; being currently designated "Wid- 

 geon" by Anglo-Indians. The latter is exceedingly common throughout India, Burma, 

 and the Malay countries ; whereas D. vagans is unknown in India, and probably 

 belongs chiefly to Northern Australia." 



This (although some misprint, or lap. cat., has rather confused the passage,) completely 

 sets the question at rest. There are two species in Java — a larger and a smaller ; the 

 latter our common Indian bird. Horsfield described the latter (Tr. L. S.) under his 

 own name javanica, which must therefore stand, and then he later figured the former 

 (Zool. Res. Java) under Cuvier's unpublished name arcuata. Cuvier hadjreally, I gather, 

 applied this name to the smaller species, but not having published it, Horsfield's publi- 

 cation of it attached it thenceforth to the larger and differently colored species, which 

 he figured, and which is, Blyth says, vagans, of Eyton. 



The synonymy of the two species will therefore be somewhat as follows :— 



D. arcuata, Cuv., Horsf. Zool. Res. Jav., pi. 65, 1824. 



D. javanica, var. B. Horsf. Tr. L. S. XIII, 200, 1821. 

 D. vagans, Eyt. Fraser's Zool. Typ., 1848, pi. 68. 

 D. Gouldi, Bp. Compt. Rend. XLIII, 649, September 1856. 

 D. badia, Mull, and Bchl. Verh. Ethn. 159 ? sine descr. 



D. javanica, Horsf. Tr. L. S., XIII, 199, 1821. 

 D. awsuree, Sykes, P. Z. S., 1832, 168. 

 P. arcuata, Cuv. apud Horsf. apud auct. nee Horsf. 



